Hailing from dystopian Sydney, the punk rock trio known as ARSE arrived at the end of 2017 with their acerbic debut Primitive Species on a cassette tape, sounding like the bastard lineage of Feedtime and Black Flag with an uber-modern spin. Equal parts dumb, terrifying and fitting for the times, Species copped the full vinyl treatment six months later courtesy of German punk label Erste Theke Tontraeger. By years end it had crash-landed on The Quietus’ best of 2018 punk round-up alongside Hank Wood and The Hammerheads, Geld and Amyl and The Sniffers.

Never content, as their music attests, ARSE have since opened for Cosmic Psychos (AU), No Age (US) and released a split seven-inch record with Sydney noise-assassins Party Dozen. The forthcoming Safe Word EP, a stop-gap on the road to long player glory, is four tracks of future-fried punk the world truly deserves. Available in July through Grupo Records.